Before making an online statement on which side to stand within the Palestine-Israel conflict, get educated on the issue — for once.
After the Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing retaliation of Israel against Hamas, the outpour of opinions regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict on social media has not been lacking. Daily, I see at least one or two people posting about it, which would not be a bad thing, if only the information was coming from reliable sources.
In a recent Technician column, correspondent Pierce Bruns said there’s a countless amount of unconfirmed information about the conflict being spread online, causing individuals to fall into a trap of disinformation.
This is true. The Pew Research Center found that in 2021 people between the ages of 18 and 29 use TikTok most often to acquire their news — making them a vulnerable group to fall into this trap as TikTok is not a reliable source of information.
The use of social media like TikTok, Snapchat and even Instagram leads to the spread of uneducated opinions that are consequently escalating violence and hatred toward both Paelestinians and Jews in different ways.
Even a comment on a social media post can cause unimaginable harm and hurt. Therefore, by stating your viewpoint on social media based on unverified information, you’re undermining the history behind a conflict that has been happening for decades.
When talking about an issue as complex as the Palestine-Israel conflict, it is important to recognize that the narrative given by the media is not complete or unbiased.
Throughout the years of conflict, media outlets like The New York Times have been criticized for focusing largely on Israel’s narrative and neglecting Palestinian history.
While I agree that some media outlets might present more information from one side than the other, I also think that it comes down to us, the readers, to look for further information to fully grasp the picture of what’s currently happening in Gaza.
Because one thing is undeniably true, this conflict was not born with the attack Oct. 7. Rather, it’s been ongoing for years. So if you’re going to deliver your opinion on the background, deep walls of anger, grievance and hurt from millions of people online, you need to do your research first.
And if you decide to trust the information you see or hear on the internet without filtering it, then it might be better to abstain from making a stance on social media that can be hurtful to the people that have been suffering and struggling for several years.
Regardless of who you think is right or wrong in this conflict, there will be a narrative that’s still missing because the Western media has been proven as skewed. The lack of equal deliberation of information and the increase of false news on social media is fanning the flames of hate among one another.
This hate limits our ability to form an educated opinion on these issues., It fogs our ability to fully understand that neither Palestinians, Israelis or anyone living in the Gaza Strip deserve to live in constant fear, homelessness, poverty or war.
Misinformation and uneducated opinions fog our reality. We don’t need that, especially right now when we can see the aftermath of the war on college campuses across the nation.
An opinion does not necessarily need to be shared in a written format; an opinion can be shared through actions. All throughout the country we are seeing the actions — targeting both Palestinians and the Jewish community — of uninformed individuals that trust every piece of information they see online.
We need to stop just seeing one side of the coin and start realizing the magnitude of how making an uneducated opinion can lead to atrocious actions to both parties.
Regardless of your religious affiliations, political beliefs or ethnicity, if your uneducated opinion turns into hate speech, it’s time to stop.
